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Sale won a vital game by 1 wicket against Bollington on Saturday but relegation fellow-candidates Mobberley also won so there is everything to play for in the last two games of the season with these two sides and Timperley fighting to avoid the drop with Marple.
Saturday's game was marked by fluctuating fortunes for both sides. Sale grabbed the initial advantage when they took the first four Bollington wickets for only 32 runs, Rashid Jamil and Rick Halkon repeating their heroics of the previous week with two wickets each. Opener Hough, surviving an easy catch at 15, and Murdoch then brought their side back into the game with a 68 runs stand that Murdoch dominated with 10 boundaries. At 103 for 6 Sale still looked to be ahead but Hough and Dawson then took toll of the tiring bowling to add 85 off 13 overs. Two wickets to Jamil in the last over gave him 5 for 63 in the innings but Bollington's total of 191 for 8 looked daunting.
Sale also suffered from the loss of early wickets as they slumped to 25 for 3 in 9 overs. However, in-form Kamran Mohammed took command from here and was ably assisted by Joel Alderson in a stand of 63 in 14 overs. The introduction of Gilder slowed Sale's run scoring and eventually made inroads into their batsmen with Alderson dismissed for 22 and then two more wickets in successive balls in his 8th over. The first of these was Mohammed for a fine 70 off 89 balls, including 50 in boundaries. At 121 for 7 and then 135 for 8 Sale looked out of it but Rick Halkon (39no) had other ideas and batted superbly in deteriorating light to see Sale home. He helped to add 20 for the ninth wicket with Jamil (14) and then in a nail-biting climax he and Rob Moore put on 38 for the last wicket, including 7 boundaries. Remarkably they scored so freely that there were 4.2 overs left at the end of this pulsating match that featured no less than 58 boundaries.
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